Money division during marriage

During a marriage before any separation agreements, when one spouse works and the other does not, who has the right to decide how discretionary money is spent, after basic living expenses have been paid? Does each spouse own half of the income of the working spouse?

There are no laws pertaining to spending and control of money during a marriage. Marriage technically makes the unit one. It is up to the couple to decide the spending issues during a marriage. However, in the dissolution of a marriage, each party is usually entitled to 50% of any marital property accumulation and cash accrued no matter how titled if it was earned during the years of the marriage.

Dear momsdaughter,

I don’t mean any disrespect, but are you one of the attorneys that moderate this forum? You may be correct, but I want information from an attorney.

I’d like to know this myself considering my STBX is trying to use the fact that we filed for bankruptcy and that I’m no good with money grounds for taking my children away from me. We’ve had some overdrawn checks and actually had to shell out close to probably $800 in overdraft fees but he knew about it and helped get things back under control (of course, after that he made my life a living hell). So yeah I wasn’t really good with money but he had access to ALL accounts and could have checked on them at ANY given time but he’s saying he left it all in my hands and now it’s my fault we declared bankruptcy and that we are behind in the mortgage. Oh and is accusing me of opening his mail (well, he told me to because he said he was too busy to deal with any of it).

Yes, no matter who earns the money, it is martial and belongs to the two of you.